Monday, March 18, 2013

Why the GOP won't move its convention to June or July in 2016

Republican Party chair Reince Priebus is proposing moving the quadrennial convention to June or July from its traditional date in late August or early September. The idea? To give the party's presidential ticket more time to raise and spend general-election dollars.

I doubt they'll do it, though. The conventions are a natural fit for those otherwise dead end-of-summer days and they come at a time when a large segment of the population is finally ready to start paying attention to presidential politics for a couple of months. A post-convention bounce in the polls in early September can really matter; a post-conventional bounce in the polls in early July is almost certain to disappear in the doldrums of August.

Since public money goes to help pay for these infomercials, I'd like the see them both shortened to three days and held back to back in the same arena in the same city, with the parties alternating who gets to choose the city and who goes first.

Posted at 04:57:42 PM

Comments

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I really like your idea of back-to-back conventions in the same city. I'm sure there will be lots of arguments, including complaints about hotel availability, wanting to spread "riches" around, etc., but I think you have a great idea.

I'd like to see them moved to late September.
And I'd like all the primaries moved to May-July.
But the the state primaries for all the local & state offices should be the second week of September.
It should also be illegal to raise money until Mar 1 of an election year!
A simple limit would be that any candidate could spend no more than $1 per registered voter in a campaign. That would cut the costs tremendously & also shorten the campaigns.

I think it would make life much easier for the "sex for pay" crowd not having to travel to two different cities at different dates to transact their business with convention delegates. Otherwise, I don't really care because not very much of any significance really happens at conventions anymore unlike in the days of my youth. The only exception is when a speaker goes wacko. Eastwood's "talk" to an imaginary president in an empty chair reminded me of Jimmy Stewart and the pooka in the movie Harvey.

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